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We have our winners! Five lucky SHECKYmagazine.com winners will receive a copy of Mitch Fatel‘s Miniskirts & Muffins. Thank you all for participating! Stay tuned for more CD giveaways in the not-too-distant future!! (And the name on the refrigerator is “Douglas!”) Congratulations to our winners!

And don’t forget to visit Mitch Fatel‘s website!

We each called one. We each are batting .500, to put it another way.

The only good thing that Jay Mohr does is say, “Go see (Exiled Comic) when he’s out on the road!” One minor quibble: He uses the word “support” way too much. This is a pet peeve of ours. We cringe when we hear club owners or emcees thanking the crowd “for supporting live comedy” like we’re some sort of obscure diversion like chamber music or modern dance that might only survive lest the folks in the know come on out and (with the help of government grants or charitable trusts) support us. Ugh!

We’re not going to mention any names, but, it sounded like a coupla comics wrote the material on the way to the theater. Hey, if you’re going to be appearing on national television, doing two minutes (of television-clean material), why not buy some material? After Week #1 or #2, and your team has won $50,000, why not take some of the cash and commission some writer(s) to craft a couple of decent, coherent, Middle-America-pleasing two-minute sets.

New comics and fans are saying, “Why not just slice out a hunk of your club set?” Reasonable question, but it just ain’t the same. Just because somebody’s got 60 minutes of material doesn’t mean he’s got 30 two-minute sets at the ready, ripe for peeling off for use on a reality-TV showcase. There are… considerations. All that aside, there’s gobs of money at stake here. Why not buy some material and give yourself an edge. The whole affair is all so unreal. Why not come prepared with a tight, coherent, two-minute set or two… or three… and worry about all the other stuff later.

Okay. We suspect that they’re making up the rules as they go along. They just extracted two comics from each season and said that one of each of the pairs is safe… and the other is gone. It’s based on voting from last week… but don’t quote us on that. They chose Madigan and Holcomb from Season 2 and Joyce and Kemp from Season 1. Now they’ve “surprised” the teams by asking them to do something totally different from what they did last week… uh… er…

Predictions: Traci says that Joyce and Madigan are gone. She says, “America is determined to deep six the babes.” I say the exact opposite. The babes are staying and Kemp and Holcomb are gone.

Okay… Mohr has just proclaimed Tess and Gary Gulman as “The sexiest couple on television.” Are the producers of The Simpsons writing the script for this show? (From the funny years!)

Now, Alonzo Bodden is on and they’ve told us that there are sixteen different ways of voting. Carrier pigeon has been added, near as we can tell.

The whole thing is making our head hurt. Bring back Rusty the Dog from Season 2! It’s the only thing that can save it! If it can indeed be saved. It may be the end of Reality Television as we know it. Stay tuned.

One of the Founding Fathers of comedy in Philadelphia (He ran the fabled Comedy Works on Chestnut St. for much of the red-hot ’80s), comic and writer Steve Young has hit an ink gusher by publishing a parody of the staid MoveOn.org website.

It was Young, political editor of National Lampoon, who reacted when he heard conservative Fox talk host Bill O’Reilly say, “What is this MoveOn, the next National Lampoon?”

The right, say National Lampoon editors, owns the talk shows. But political satire belongs to the left.

Read the rest here.

Paul Ogata‘s second Big Move is up!

“Hey, you’re the comedian guy,” the voice clarifies.

With nothing to do besides wait for my flight to leave without me, I decide to say hello to a guy who is trying to get my attention. Ah ha! The voice belongs to an airline employee. Perhaps he can help me get to my plane.

“Yeah,” I acknowledge, “that’s me.”

The airline guy gushes, “Man, you were freakin’ funny last time we went to see your show. Where you going?”

Yes! Here was my opportunity. “I’ve got a flight in ten minutes to L.A.,” I tell him. “I got a part in a Damon Wayans movie.”

“Alright!” he cheers me on. Then he looks at this watch, and says, “Eh, you’re gonna miss your flight, brah.”

Will he make the flight? Find out here.

The MDA Labor Day Telethon kinda snuck up on us. Bob Zany is hosting right now. He’s been a regular performer on the annual fundraiser and has been taking over some of the host duties from Jerry Lewis in recent years.

P.S. Associated Press is reporting that Rodney will make a full recovery.

LOS ANGELES – Comedian Rodney Dangerfield (news) is expected to make a full recovery from his heart valve replacement surgery but remained in intensive care Sunday, his publicist said.

Ready for a fresh flip on standup comedy? We didn’t think so.

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter)- The street art of baggin’– urban slang for targeting sarcastic jokes at someone– is coming to television with a reality show hosted by Ralphie May of Last Comic Standing.

Born on street corners and in barbershops across the country, baggin’ includes the popular “your momma” one-liners, and no topic is off-limits…

…Baggin’, from producer Claude Brooks, features contestants of various backgrounds and ethnicities going through one-on-one rounds of baggin’ until one of them wins.

The contestants perform in front of an audience, which determines the winner, with May, well known for his baggin’ abilities, cranking up the heat during the face-offs.

Wasn’t this called “Snaps” about ten years ago? And before that, wasn’t it called “doin’ the dozens?” And, before that, I think we called it “making fun of people?” (Or, if you prefer, “makin’ fun o’ people.”) The worst part of the story is when Brooks calls his baby, “s a fresh flip on stand-up comedy.” It always amazes us that everyone is always so anxious to do something to standup comedy, rather than merely present professional and competent standup comics doing standup well in a setting that lends itself to the art/craft of standup comedy. We would love to be present at the pitch meeting at one of the major networks when Mr. Brooks says that “no topic is off-limits.” Read the rest here.

CBS is floating not one but four possible replacements for the departed Craig Kilborn. In an article that’s popping up in all the daily newspapers, Amy Sedaris, Ian Michael Black, Jim Rome and D.L. Hughley are being batted around.

Here’s an odd coincidence: When speculating on Kilborn’s life after Late Late Show, we speculated that he’d do well to host a show that utilized his love of professional sport and his interviewing skills… and we suggested that such a show might be The Jim Rome Show but with the sense of humor that Rome so sorely lacks. Now, it seems that the folks at CBS are considering the mirror opposite– Late Late Show, hosted by Jim Rome, without a sense of humor!

We linked to a column in the Las Vegas Sun last week, but we hosed up the URL on it, so when you clicked on it, you went NOWHERE! Below it is corrected.

Hit lasvegassun.com then hit “Accent” then hit “Columnists” then seek out the column by Lisa Ferguson.

Also in that column was an item about how the Zone is back at the Plaza downtown. We had reported in an earlier posting that the Zone was down indefinitely. (That’s the last time we take the word of someone who works in the cashier’s cage!)

Following a complete showroom and operational revamp, the Comedy Zone at the Plaza is set to reopen on Tuesday, with Russ Nagel and Tim Rowlands on the bill. Showtimes are 8 and 10 p.m. nightly (dark Mondays); tickets are $21.95.

Things aren’t looking good for Rodney. Then again, this would be his fourth hospitalization since March 2000. Stay tuned.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – More than a week after undergoing heart surgery, comedian Rodney Dangerfield remains hospitalized in intensive care and hooked to a respirator, his publicist said on Thursday.

The 82-year-old comic– famed for his self-deprecating one-liners and the catch phrase, “I can’t get no respect”– underwent a heart valve replacement at the UCLA Medical Center last Wednesday.